


Hostage

by nothingeverlost



Series: The World is Enough (Renbelle) [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), World Is Not Enough (1999)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingeverlost/pseuds/nothingeverlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle French, daughter of a wealthy oil magnet, has been kidnapped by former KGB Russian terrorist Victor 'Renard' Zokas.  Soon the line between kidnapper and victim are blurred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> In some ways a retelling of the events before 'World is not Enough' with Belle rather than Elektra. But as Belle is a different person, things happen differently.

The wiring in the house was old, not able to keep up with the demands of an alarm system and computers on top of the lights. When the power went out it was security that was his first concern. The prisoner was in a room with locks on the doors and bars on the windows; there was no chance of escape. It wasn’t until everything was under control, half an hour after the lights went out, that he was able to find time to check on her.

"Do not think that you can sneak past me in the dark, little one. There is no hope of escape." As he swept the room with the torch he could not see her anywhere. She was not on her bed or in the armchair by the largest window. She was not at the small table or standing anywhere in plain sight. Carefully he locked the door, slipping the key into his pocket and began to search the room. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

It was the barest sound that caught his attention, an inhale of breath perhaps. He knelt on the floor beside the bed and aimed the torch light on the dark form. His prisoner was hiding. "What did you hope to accomplish?"

"Dark." Her blue eyes were wide, her cheeks stained with still fresh tears.

"How very observant of you." He started to back away before she reached out to grasp at him.

"Don’t leave me. Please. Too dark." She was trembling, he could see now. He shouldn’t care; she was just a job, a way to get the money he needed; one good job like this and he could retire. Maybe it was her eyes, but he could not dismiss her.

"The lights will be on soon," he tried to assure her. The lights, honestly, could be off for hours.

"Dark is dangerous." Her fingers wrapped around his forearm; her fingers were so thin and she was so small that she could not possibly hurt him. She did not have that much strength.

"Not as dangerous as I am, French." He shook his head; everyone else in the house worked for him, and no one would dare touch his prize. The only thing she had to fear was him, especially if her father did not pay.

"Memories are more frightening. They can’t be fought." He shone the torch in her face; she closed her eyes but in the moment before she did he saw honesty there.

He never would have taken her for someone that had so many demons, nor would he have thought she would prefer him to being alone. her other hand was against his shoulder and her face was pressed against his chest. With a single move he could smother her. Or hold her.

"If you start crying I will leave, yes?" He wrapped an arm around her, holding her closer. Her hair smelled faintly of flowers; her breath must have been warm but he could not feel it.

"Thank you."


	2. Taking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's never been kissed before.

“Your turn is next, eh boss?” Pyotr smirked as he nodded his head towards the corner of the hall where one of the men, Olav, was not bothering to be at all subtle about his fucking. It was payday, and he’d seen no reason to refuse when he men had made plans to draw together their money and hire a few whores. They had little enough entertainment, and unhappy men were less likely to be loyal. 

“Make sure at least two men are always on guard, no matter what,” he answered dismissively. He could not let his men see him as an equal, sharing a whore with them. He could have arranged for a woman of his own, but he did not have any interest.

There was only one woman that interested him, and she was as far from the common whores as it was possible for a woman to be.

“What are you doing?” When he climbed the stairs he found the woman in question standing on the landing, looking at the scene below. From her vantage point she could not fail to see the crude sex.

“I heard noises. I thought…” She wrapped the military issue jacket that served as her dressing gown tighter around her. “I didn’t understand what it meant.”

“Oh course you don’t. People in elite private schools and on compounds surrounded by papa’s men don’t fuck, do they?” Acid burned in his throat, that she was watching what was happening. Her freedom, her safety, her innocence; one by one he was taking everything from her. It made him angry at himself and harsh to her. She wasn’t supposed to matter, beyond her price tag.

“It’s wrong, isn’t it? The priests always said it was wrong.” She looked away from him, lower lip tucked under her teeth. She wouldn’t look at him when she spoke of the priests. She wouldn’t look at him, either, when he asked about the scars on her back. Lash marks.

He was going to kill every holy bastard in her country.

“They are fools. Denying what small pleasure a person might find, that it wrong. Making people hate their own feelings, that is wrong. They are the sinners. Not you.” With three fingers under her chin he drew her head back, forcing her to look at him. “They made you ashamed of who you are.”

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord,” she quoted. “A husband deserves a wife that has kept her body and thoughts pure, for him.”

“Is that what they tell you as they mar your body?” Her perfect body, no less so because of the scars. 

“They never…”

“Don’t lie to me. Silence is better than a lie.” He ensured her silence with a kiss, hard enough that she could not forget it. Her first kiss, and he took it from her. What was one more thing?


	3. The Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The man had touched what was his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for violence and possible sexual assault.

Renard was in control. He did not act in blind anger, not in front of the men. They needed to understand that there were no arbitrary rules, no random punishments. Those that performed their jobs were rewarded. Those that betrayed the rules paid the price.

“You were told, were you not, that the prisoner was mine?” Those men not assigned to tasks stood in two lines, not a one of them daring to speak. Only Aston stood apart.

“You were gone for two days. We were under orders to make sure she was fed and taken care of.” The fool dared to meet his gaze. Perhaps he even felt some degree of superiority, six inches of height difference meaning that he was looking down on his boss. He did not understand that he should be begging. Not that begging would change his mind.

“She has a bruise on her arm.” It took all of his control not to just be done with it then, and end the cockroach’s little existence.

The lesson was not ended yet.

“She’s clumsy. You’ve seen the way she trips over gaps in the floor.” The lie was almost a good one. Almost.

“And I suppose that it was her clumsiness that ripped her shirt?” It was the dangling sleeve that had revealed the deep purple bruise on her arm. She’d tried to hide it when she’d seen him staring, and refused to say what happened, just as she refused to speak of the priests. It was Paulo that had told him the story. His loyalty would earn him a promotion. Aston’s betrayal would earn him a place in hell.

“If she says differently then she’s a lying little bitch.” The man’s chest puffed out, one of the last breaths he would draw.

“She said nothing. This, if you pardon the pun, speaks volumes.” Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth was the only book Belle had had in her room. The fact that one of his men had taken it from her was the only thing she would admit to when he questioned her. She cared more for her book than the bruise on her arm.

He cared about both. The book had been found, thanks to Paulo’s information, in Aston’s quarters. “You took this from her?”

“She is a hostage, useful only for the money we ransom her for. What does it matter if she has a book? She should be tied up.” Aston snarled, and Renard was finished.

“No one touches her. No one so much as goes in her room without my direct orders. Do you understand?” He set down the book, waiting for his answer.

“Why should…” Aston didn’t have time for even a last breathe at Renard dug his thumb into the taller man’s windpipe.

“I was not speaking to you. You are nothing now.” It took the man less than a minute to fall to the floor. Renard knelt over him and kept pressing until the bastard stopped floundering and the smell of urine meant that his last indignity of dying was a released bladder. “You understand?” he repeated.

“Yes sir.” Pyotr answered for the group. When he looked up all the men were nodding.

“Good. Now have someone take care of this mess. I don’t wish to see him again.” Renard picked up the book after he stood and headed for the stairs. Somehow he was not surprised to find Belle standing there, eyes wide, staring down at the corpse on the floor. The fact that he could see the bruise only made him wish he’d been slower with his death sentence.

“You killed him.” A tear fell down her cheek. The son of a bitch did not deserve even that much.

“He touched you.” Rage bubbled up. He wanted to hit something, or someone. But not her. She would be safe, even from him.

“I didn’t want…”

“It does not matter what you wanted. Now everyone understands. No one will touch you again.” he did not know what Aston had been planning, but he could guess. A girl who had only been kissed once would not understand what could have happened, is Aston had gotten his way.

She looked at him, her blue eyes wet with more tears, before running down the hall. He did not watch her, but heard the retching a moment later. He would have one of his men clean that up as well.

He still held the book that he’d meant to return to her. It would wait until tomorrow. He would leave her alone tonight.


	4. Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second glass of vodka was too much.

The second drink had been a mistake. The first had been meant to calm her, and had done its job well enough. The second had been sheer indulgence. His men were almost all outside, at target practice, and it was only himself and Belle in the villa. He, of course, could hold two drinks without so much as a delayed reaction. Belle, on the other hand, was giggling

 

Giggling. He hadn’t heard the sound in years, and almost didn’t understand it except for the upturn of her mouth. “I feel like I’m floating.”

“Stay away from the windows,” he ordered even as he crossed the room to make sure they were locked. She was dancing on the tiles of the room, her feet bare. Two blue shoes were in the middle of the floor; he kicked them under the desk.

“Afraid that my father will not pay for a corpse?” A spin set her off balance, and she caught herself on a now closed window. She flinched at an explosion, this one more than gunfire; they were testing the grenades now. “Maybe he will not pay at all.”

“You are his only child, his daughter. He will pay.” He had spent more than a year targeting the man, learning everything he could. The man cared for his money, his greenhouse of rare orchids, and his daughter. The only question in Renard’s mind was whether Maurice French was aware that his daughter was something more than a possession.

“He’s spent my whole life ensuring that I’m his pure little girl. What if he believes that I’m not anymore?” She poured herself half a drink before he took the bottle from her. Half of that sloshed on her dress before she managed to drink it. “He has no spies here, no priests of governesses or maids. Anything could happen.”

“Nothing has.” He killed one man for touching her. he would kill more, if need be. “Your father will pay and you will go home.”

“I never wanted anything to happen. The idea of a man touching me in that way terrified me. I was taught…” She giggled again, her eyes closed as she swayed to some unheard music

“What did they teach you?” She had yet to speak freely of the priests, even when he demanded it.

“I think about you touching me. You held me, that night, and I wonder what it would be like if you did more than hold me. Sometimes it makes me shake, to think about it, but it’s not fear. I’ve seen you kill a man, Renard, and yet you’re the only man I’ve never feared.” She smelled of vodka when she leaned into him, and tasted of it when she kissed him. There was a sweetness, though, that had nothing to do with the alcohol on her lips. He had kissed her twice, but it was the first time she’d kissed him. The first time, he believed, that she’d kissed any man.

“Your shoes are under the desk. When you get them I will escort you upstairs.” Once she was in bed he could join his men in their drills. He had a sudden need to feel the cold and reliable weight of a gun in his hand.

“Don’t you ever think about touching me, Renard?” Her voice was innocence and confusion. He’d met teenager who were more certain and knowledgeable about their sexuality than she was.

“What I would do if I had the chance would only start with touching, malyishka. You dream of a lover that does not exist.” He knew nothing of making love, only of fucking.

“I dream of you.” She kissed him again before searching for her shoes. They sat right next to each other, but she only manage to find one.

Foolish girl.


	5. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wasn't sure what scared her anymore.

Something had woken her. A noise, she thought; perhaps target practice. There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to when the men fire their guns; it would not be the first time they have woken her.

She wanted to blame it on the guns, but there was no sound, not of firing or of boots on gravel. There was only the racing of her own heart. Nightmares again. Images flooded her mind; she holds tight to the sheets, breathes deep and fights against the darkness that threatens to drown her.

She wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. She never could. At home she might go downstairs and heat up some herbal tea; Mrs. Potts might be awake already and willing to let her listen as she told stories of her childhood in Paris. Belle could always lose herself in a story, no matter if it was written in a book or told by the most maternal woman she knew. She didn’t remember her mother.

Here there was no friendly cook in the kitchen. There must be a kitchen because meals are brought to her three times a day but she had yet to see it. Even if there was not a guard in the hall to stop her she would not be welcome there. She is not welcome anywhere, and yet in a strange way she finds less to fear in the men with guns than she does in the memories of her own mind. Only two people have touched since they carried her from the helicopter. The man called Aston was the only one to hurt her and he…

She doesn’t like to think about Aston. She doesn’t like to think of Renard either, not that way. Not with a cold voice and the way he so easily ended a life. His touches have only been gentle and kind to her, even if his words are not always friendly.

She can not go in search of the kitchens but she can not stay in her bed either. She settles on opening the french doors to the balcony and standing where she can see the courtyard three stories below, the rocks, and the glint of moonlight on the water. Perhaps she will stay until the sun rises and watch the sea turn colors.

“It will be a terrible mess, if you jump. Even more so if you survive the fall.” She did not hear the door opening, almost hypnotized by the flickers of lights on the waves and a half remembered poem. 

_O light beheld as through refracting tears. Here is the aura of that world each of us has lost. Here is the shadow of its joy._

“I wouldn’t. I wasn’t going to.” Her hands gripped the bars at the edge of the balcony until she identified the voice. Not her guard, but Renard. He would not hurt her. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“You’ve been crying.” She barely sensed his movements until he was standing beside her. More than one of his men had called him a ghost; she understood why.

“I’m sorry.” She hadn’t even felt the tears that had probably fallen while she slept.

“I think you are lying again, malyishka.” She barely felt his thumb against his cheek, but she knew without asking that he had wiped away her tear. “It is not a lack of sleep that had you out of bed. I heard you crying.”

“I did not mean to wake anyone.” She tried to be brave, but when she slept her fears attacked. She wasn’t sure what scared her more, though; what might happen in this place or what would happen when her papa paid the ransom.

It never occurred to her that he might not pay.

“I was not sleeping. I think best in the night, when there is nothing to interrupt me.” He was dressed in black, as usual, but wore a t-shirt without his customary jacket. The casual dress might have made him seem less intimidating, except that she could make out the way his forearms were lean but well muscled. Not like someone who had tried to build muscle, but like a fighter.

He had killed a man with barely more than his thumb.

“What do you think about?” He was so inscrutable, most of the time. Harsh, at others. And yet he could wipe away her tears,

“How I will disappear, once this is all finished. I am getting too old for this game.” 

“I would miss you.” Belle looked out at the water and bit her lower lip. It was, perhaps, a confession that she should not have made. Her nightmares haunted her, though, and she would not let them win. She would be brave.


End file.
